Member postings for jomac

Stub Hi, was watching "top gear" awhile ago, and on it was an American who liked old cheap cars especially English ones, he was also a banjo player, who on the show had a home made banjo made out of two Morris Minor hub caps fixed to a length of timber, it had only three strings, to my out of tune hearing sounded OK. Hows that for impreviseation.

John Holloway,

PS sorry about the spelling

Hi, whats wrong with TIG welding a similar piece of metal in place, if you do one weld then let it cool down, (anyway TIG welds that small dont get that hot), then grind away the excess, or use another chuck or collet to machine down the offending bits. By the way as said before DONT!!! hit the key or but a length of steel in the chuck jaws and belt that too, not only do you damage the screws and the chuck jaws, you can also put the chuck out of alignment with the back plate, even bending the holding down screws.

If you have some spare time, drill three or four holes into the outside rim of the back plate and make a HEAVY duty C spanner, to remove stubborn chucks, if you drill the holes properly they make good indexing marks.

John Holloway.

Paul, is the part you going to weld, a strength part, or just ornamental, If reasonable strength is needed, just get some 1.5 rods, drop the amps to 40 or so, then tack weld it every 60mm apart, Do the outer edges first, after clamping it together, then 1 or 2 tacks in the middle, If the back is out of sight also put tacks between the ones on the front, Why do it this way,??? its because of distortion of the thinner section, you can then grind/file away the excess, then epoxy or use metal filler (ie cold weld). as said before try a test piece first.

John Holloway

PS my workshop was flooded after the heavy rains we had, down here in OZ.

Hi Ian P, I think you are right, I down loaded I tunes, and cause my XP is supposed to be 64 bit, it only works as a read only. Anyway I have to return the I/pad next Febuary, so I think I will stick to the desk computer, It has a bigger screen and more memory, so its easier to play games on, (only if the sound is off, SWMBO is a bit fussy about noisy motor bikes) chess is quiet, except when I lose a game.

Have a good new year.

John Holloway

PS its late Im'e going to bed

Terry, I flew down to Melbourne for Xmas, my grandson/daughter have I/pod and I/pad, the boy is doing vet science but of the ten boys and girls that were there, 6 were doing engineering degrees, so all up there were at least 20 down loads of the level app, They all thank you for a free Xmas present,!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately, I only have windows XP, although it seems to work,and is supposed to be 64 bit, ???? My daughter loaned me her I/pad, next thing is how to link the I/pad to my computer, and down load good stuff, (I have a different ISP, and dont know her ISP).

Thanks, and have a happy and fruitful new year.

John Holloway

Hi again, I forgot the most important thing I did when I refurbished the fine down feed and that was replacing or rotating the pin in the housing, it is a pin, part No 83 in one of the catalogues (they are still available over there) this pin locks the hardened gear shaft in the housing, it is soft metal and wear somewhat on one side, this allows a lot of backlash, As it is some time ago when I refurbished the down feed I forgot whether I just rotated the pin or made a new one, anyway it removed 1/3 rotation of the downfeed knob. Gerry. because of backlash, when drilling or using a slot drill under power, and the headstock is not locked, use one hand to keep a light upward pressure on the main downfeed handle, (clockwise), that will stop the mill from cutting upto 1mm more than you need, ie, you are milling down to a set depth and only need another 40 thou. I did alleviate most of my problems, by purchasing a 600mm long measuring gauge with separate read out gauge of E/bay and was lucky I was the only bidder and got it cheap.

John Holloway

Hi, Seasons greeting, I have been using Opera for about ten years, NO problems, its the fastest browser around, and is alway being updated, Having said that, things seemed to be going slower. so last week all my phones and internet went off, for two days, Telstra and my ISP blamed each other, for the problem, Telstra fixed it and my ISP loaned me a new modem,because Telstra had up graded the line to ADSL2+, thing were looking up, now my old modem which is suppost to work doesnt !!!!!!. Got onto E/bay and brought a new modem for $25, (I was the only bidder) will see how it goes when I get it ???. My ISP got me to do a speed test while they were logged on to my line, its now pushing up to 8mpps which is 4-10 times my old speed, BUT before all this happened I could still turn pages on this site with only a 5 sec delay, its now faster. I will keep my fingers crossed to see if it lasts, I had thought my computer was over loaded, and needed to upgrade the CPU and memory, so now I will wait till next year to upgrade and re format the hard drive.

John Holloway

Merry Xmas

PS Im'e sweating down here while I watch the snow over there on TV

Peter and others, mine is a well used Sieg X2, The fine down feed was giving me problems with too much backlash, so I stripped it down, and redrilled the holes in the universal joint and replaced the pins with with slightly bigger SS nut and bolts, squashed in the mortice and tenons for a smooth fit, and then made up a new better fitting key for the keyway. Because the keyway in the down feed gets worn a lot, the new key is two sizes, one for the shaft the bigger size for the down feed handle, I now have only 2-3 divisions of play as against 10-15. It was a bit stiff to start with, but after a while its now OK.

Merry Xmas and Happy new year

John Holloway

Hi ,Peters right. shock loads to the bearing and gears/splines, is a NO NO, also not mentioned is the fact that in a small square columb mill the dovetails also take a hammering, which is why you can have problems in tramming the mill parallel. In some cheap Asian mills that have round columbs, the verticle round tubes can get bent at the bottom where it fit into the base, I know cause I had an adjustable devise that had verticle and horizontal round hollow tubes, the tubes were too thin and the casting were diecast, so both were bent and distorted. So how do I cope, well the draw bar has a Nylock nut and the draw bar has a square top, all I need to do is set the nut to the right depth??? and lock it down to this. And most importantly !!!!!!! I have a heavy piece of hardwood or a heavy but soft piece of metal, that I put under the quill, its only then that I belt the crap out of it, thus no problems with bearings or splines getting damaged. By the way hasnt this subject arisen before, and no one read it.

Merry Xmas and Happy new year.

John Holloway

I

Hi there are a few articles in this site about, half filling the columb with epoxy concrete, ( with room for the air ram) that stiffens up the columb, add the back plate, that should stiffen everything up, there is also an article on leveling and squaring the head. I dont think I need the swiveling columb, so have screwed in two cap head bolts at the front of the swivel. as my X2 came off a lathe, I made up a steel table, and welded risers for the cast swivel to mount on, also as I have a much bigger cross slide mill table there is room for the table extension to slide under the risers, So far, even using a 3 inch carbide insert mill with care, there is no problems, at some later stage I will make up a back brace out of 2" angle, with welded plate. even later (fingers crossed) I have not yet stripped the plastic gears, Then previous owner supplied me with 2 spare sets, So a belt drive might be something to look forward to, also extend the head out with spacers, (see Hossmachine for details). The only reason I got the X2 was because it was cheap, I missed out on getting an HF45 !!!!!

PS when I said cheap, that was initialy, BUT a new computer board was expensive, so if it fails again I will get a belt driven mill ?????

John Holloway

.001 Hi Have a look at the new South bend site as they are making new model lathes and milling machines, South bend and Hercus 260 (which I have) are quality machinery, although transportation costs down here to OZ could be a bit pricey, I read some where that they are looking new outlets and suppliers.

John holloway

Richard and others, Hi, I right clicked the image, then save as, all files, I then opened Open Office ORG, which is better than Microsoft works, as it is updated all the time, also its FREE!!!, the image came up in the draw section of this program, I did a motor a few years ago, doing it this way, and then opened and exported into a CAD program, and modified the drawing, to suit. Unfortunatley I have forgotten what I did back then, as now Turbo cad needs a filter (which is hard for me to do), Draftsight also fails to recognize the file, So there are some clever people out there who can do this properly, maybe they can help us out. ????. I can save and modify the drawing with Open Office, but need more time to read the help files, so that it is workable.

John Holloway

Hi I need to solder/braze carbide tips on to tool holders and some times braze up brass sections, I have silver solder which can be used with a soldering iron, and some silver brazing rods, the trouble with these is they need to much heat, so they distort and as mentioned de zincify, Down here CIG (which is now owned by BOC) are not much help and the price of lower temp silver brazing rods is astronomical, All my welding/brazing books are out of date, So is there a solution or up to date data out there.

John H.

Hi lookup Sherline and find the article on rotary tables, it has some good info on dividing.

John Holloway

Hi I made a similar rest to the Harold Hall one, but mine is bigger and more solid, (20X8mm) with a 150X150X10mm table rest The grinder is mounted on wooden box section frame, which is adjustable for hight and the grinding rest can also be positioned at the side of the wheels, ie cup and a very thin wheel, these are diamond wheels, (DONT use mild steel on them as they wear and clog up) the home made indexer works well, just have to cut a slot into the table rest, and fit fine adjusters, for better control. Everthing is screwed down with coach screws, that way I dont have to fiddle with lost washer and nuts????

John Holloway.

Hi I made a similar rest to the Harold Hall one, but mine is bigger and more solid, (20X8mm) with a 150X150X10mm table rest The grinder is mounted on wooden box section frame, which is adjustable for hight and the grinding rest can also be positioned at the side of the wheels, ie cup and a very thin wheel, these are diamond wheels, (DONT use mild steel on them as they wear and clog up) the home made indexer works well, just have to cut a slot into the table rest, and fit fine adjusters, for better control. Everthing is screwed down with coach screws, that way I dont have to fiddle with lost washer and nuts????

John Holloway.

Hi. How do you down load or print out the drawings for this engine, I use Opera and saved the file and tried various types of files, unforturnatley none of them worked , nor did it print straight of the internet file, just blank pages with a header.

John Holloway.

PS Ramon, still have not started the Bolaero18, first because Ive been busy and second I dropped it and snapped of the carby needle, fixed that and whent back to making the furnace so that I can cast the crankcase for the David Anderson satilite engine (DA 1cc) every thing else is made, just need more time and energy for the crank case.

Hi , Ive got three workbenches, the long one is made of 1 1/2" ply, supported by 6, 4x4 legs braced with 1/2" form work ply, ie thats the one coated with varnish, all up its 7' long by 4' wide, 2 vices and the drill are bolted to it, plus the small home made lathe. thus its very solid, so much so I can bend and hammer 1/2" steel rod in the big vice, and nothing moves. I got the timber for free years ago. The other bench is 5'x4' topped with a piece of 50mm thick bench top,(off cut from a building site) I made two large drawers 300mm deep to store pits and pieces for the tool and cutter thats mounted on the right hand side, the spare space was for drawing on, thats the theory, but I tend to drop and leave things on it, so I do the drawings on the 3/4 snooker table thats also in the workshop. The third bench is for the small Sieg X2 mill that was on a lathe, (brought that off e/bay) as I was starting to make a milling machine, I had some 1 1/2" thick walled pipe and some 50mm square tubing, the top is welded up 50mm square and has two extra braces, that is welded to the round pipe for the legs, and cross braces, with 16mm chip board screwed to the sides and back, it has two large swing door cupboards in the lower section and six draws for collets end mills etc etc. this mill stand/cupboard has adjustable jacks welded to the bottom of the legs, again nothing moves, solid as the proverbial rock, As an aside, I made up and welded 10mm and 16mm box section thats welded to the 50mm top frame, to mount the Sieg X2 onto, drilled and tapped to take the base of the mill, the cross slide is a large one ie 450x250 thats mounted on 45mm angle which is also welded to the top braces. So what is the best,????? steel or wood, the large bench did shrink and needed redoing, the steel one is very,very solid, but because its welded and purpose built, would need a lot of work to modify it, if needs be, (I know cause I am lowering the angle under the cross slide, so the it will run under the mill support base). Go around building sites, and look into skips, you might make a bench up for next to nothing.

John Holloway